How to Woo a Wallflower (Romancing the Rules #3)(7)

A pity, since she rather liked sparking a reaction stronger than cool civility from Mr. Adamson.





CHAPTER THREE

“Nothing?” Clary swallowed against the lump of disappointment lodged in her throat. “He left me nothing?”

Time slowed to the speed of treacle dripping from a teaspoon. Only Kit and Ophelia’s drawing-room mantel clock continued on, ticking steadily as if nothing had changed. As if all her hopes and plans weren’t evaporating before her eyes.

“On the contrary, Miss Ruthven, your father provided a prodigious sum to secure your future.” The family solicitor, Mr. Whitaker, tapped a finger against the document in front of her. “Just there, second paragraph. Shall I read that portion again?”

“No, thank you.” Leaning closer, her eyes blurred as she skimmed the minuscule print, but the opaque legal language was shockingly clear.

Her father had left her no money of her own.

“As the will states,” Mr. Whitaker continued in his dry, no-nonsense drone, “the entire dowry will be paid once you marry.”

Once you marry. He might as well have said, “Once you climb Mount Kilimanjaro” or “Once you become the most feted debutante of the Season.” Neither of which was going to happen. Marriage wasn’t possible. At least not yet. Perhaps not ever. There was too much she wished to do.

A folded square of foolscap in Clary’s pocket contained a list of goals she wished to accomplish and causes she wished to promote. First of which was the Fisk Academy. The rest of her inheritance she’d planned to invest, so that she could preserve her independence, travel widely, and continue doing as she pleased into her dotage.

Among a thousand interests, she couldn’t bear the notion of confining herself to one singular pursuit.

Rather than mediocrity spread among many tasks, pursue excellence at a single undertaking.

The admonition, a line from one of her father’s etiquette books, stuck in her head but never altered her essential nature. Her brother and sister said she lacked patience. Perhaps they were right, but she never lacked energy. Or grand plans.

For too long she’d been a dabbler. A trifler. An armchair explorer. She read voraciously of fearless young ladies in novels, but she’d yet to make her own mark on the world.

“I don’t wish to be indelicate, Mr. Whitaker, but surely my father left me something. Are there no funds that come directly to me? To do with as I wish?”

Freedom would only come when she could control her own funds.

“I’m sorry to bring distressing news, Miss Ruthven.” Whitaker began to withdraw, turtle-like, his neck disappearing and shoulders sinking as his barrel chest deflated. “For years, I’ve served your family and still recall your father contacting me to alter his will on the occasion of your birth.” He regarded her solemnly for a moment. “He did wish to provide for you.”

“I know.” As with everything her father did, he assumed his children would conform to his expectations.

Whitaker busied himself, pulling out another oblong legal document from his leather satchel. “Shall we ask your brother and sister to join us for the signing of the partnership document? Their signatures are required too.”

“Yes, of course.”

Whitaker sprang from the settee like a man half his age.

“And thank you for your years of service to the Ruthvens,” Clary called after him. She couldn’t blame the solicitor for wishing to carry out his duties and be on his way. The poor man was probably used to young ladies who were grateful for their dowries and eager to put the sum to use securing an appealing suitor.

Clary could only think of everything she could achieve with the money.

Her older sister, Sophia, stepped into the room first, her expression faltering before she shot straight toward Clary like an arrow of sisterly concern. “What’s happened? You look pale and miserable.”

“Father left me a dowry.”

“Were you expecting him to do otherwise?” Sophia’s brow puckered under the artfully arranged wave of honey-blonde hair across her forehead.

“I thought he might have left me something of my own.”

Sophia laid her palm against Clary’s cheek. “Marriage was the fate Papa imagined for every woman.” She ducked her head until Clary looked her in the eye. “You have heard of the Ruthven Rules, haven’t you?” she teased.

They’d all been forced to read them. Every single word.

Their father’s dry, traditional etiquette books were so successful that they were the reason there were dowries and a publishing business for Clary and her siblings to inherit.

What a fool she’d been to think Papa—who loathed change and progress and any notion that women longed for accomplishments of their own—would set aside funds to allow her a measure of independence.

It didn’t matter. She’d find another way.

“Is everything in order?” Kit entered and closed the drawing room door behind him. Clary got a glimpse of her sister-in-law, Ophelia, in the sitting room across the hall. She longed to join her. She’d had enough of legal documents and disappointment for one day.

Her encounter with Gabriel Adamson came to mind. Just the thought of the man—his spotless suit, chiseled jaw, and icy gaze—was sufficient to ruin her day.

“The document only awaits your signatures.” Mr. Whitaker gestured to a low table that had been placed in the center of the snug room.